Gus Malzahn's longstanding rule prohibiting his quarterbacks from working with private coaches, or gurus, in the offseason is a thing of the past.

Malzahn, who has been ardently against the practice during his tenure as Auburn's coach, said last month that he would be leaving the decision -- like most decisions regarding the offense -- up to new offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey. The Tigers' offensive coordinator was clear in his response when asked Tuesday during his first media availability of the spring.

"I don't have a problem with it, and most of the guys they work with, or the few that they do, I know them anyway and I communicate with them," Lindsey said. "I don't have a problem with them trying to go and get better."

Malzahn has long been an opponent of the practice and has given his reasoning behind his mindset. Simply put, he wanted to keep outsider voices on the outside, instead having his quarterbacks remain within his system.

The rule has prevented former quarterback Nick Marshall from working with private guru George Whitfield, who has worked with the likes of Cam Newton, Andrew Luck, Jameis Winston and Johnny Manziel, among others. It also prevented Sean White from working with longtime private coach Ken Mastrole, with whom White trained from eighth grade through his senior year of high school.

Under Lindsey, however, quarterbacks will now be free to seek outside help during the offseason when they aren't on campus. It's not something completely new to Lindsey, either. He said that while he was at Arizona State last year, "it seemed like" every one of the Sun Devils' quarterbacks had a private quarterback coach on the West Coast that they would work with in the offseason.

"Well, I think, you know, those guys want to go work when they're away from here and really, they're just working on fundamentals and trying to improve and get better," Lindsey said. "That's something that, as time has gone on, that relationship has changed over time. I'll just be honest."

That's a promising development for Auburn's group of quarterbacks, none of whom have been made available to the media yet this spring. Of the Tigers' signal-callers, at least three of them have known ties to private quarterback gurus.

Freshman Malik Willis has worked with private quarterback coach Sean McEvoy of Premier Quarterback Training since August. Willis' work with McEvoy continued even after Willis enrolled at Auburn this semester, with the 6-foot-1, 185-pound freshman traveling home to Georgia for a 90-minute workout with McEvoy at Willis' alma mater, Roswell High, last month.

McEvoy hoped to continue to help Willis develop as a quarterback in a supplemental manner in line with what Lindsey and Malzahn have in store for him at Auburn. With Lindsey's reversal of Malzahn's rule, that won't be an issue.

"My mindset's this: If I in any way can help Malik, and then through that help Auburn's program -- if Malik is better for whatever they find a way to use him, then I want to be able to do that," McEvoy said. "...It's certainly about just trying to do whatever's going to be helpful for Malik."